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The Watering Hole; Thursday May 15 2014; Protect Public Lands

One of my longstanding passions remains the protection of ALL public lands, everywhere, from EVERY assault, no matter the source or the “logic” behind it. In that vein, a few days ago I received the following notification from The Wilderness Society, a notification which details yet one more proposal to use public lands in the WRONG way.

What is 6,000 miles long, up to 5 miles wide and could threaten wilderness, wildlife habitat and national parks? A planned network of electric power line routes that would crisscross the west.We need new power lines to get electricity to our homes, but a proposed network, the West-wide Energy Corridors, could threaten American wildlands. Outside Arches National Park a power line corridor is proposed alongside the park and through spectacular scenic vistas in Utah’s red rock desert. Another proposed corridor would require cutting down old growth forests near Mt. Hood in Oregon.

The current network of energy corridors also connects to dirty coal power plants but neglects areas with high renewable energy potential. Rerouting corridors to support wind, solar and geothermal projects will help tackle climate change and advance a clean energy future. The BLM has the opportunity to protect wild places like Arches National Park from large scale transmission lines and support clean, renewable energy. Tell the BLM to propose new routes away from important wild lands!

Sincerely,

The Wilderness Society

Let’s face it: Public Lands — National Parks, National Monuments, National Forests, National Grasslands, designated Primitive and Wilderness Areas, and BLM acreages represent the very few remaining parcels of relatively untrammeled land in the entire of this nation, the “trammeling” of which will have massive negative consequences.

Nevertheless, today the pressures to allow and enable such trammelings are endless . . . and extremely well-funded.It’s time to say NO! Click on either of the above link(s) and let your voice be heard. There are ALWAYS alternatives to sacrificing the integrity of public lands simply to the interest of corporate convenience, and the time for we the people to say NO! is NOW! And that includes NO to power lines; NO to fracking; NO to logging; NO to mining; NO to ATVs (esp. in Utah’s Recapture Canyon and to all the Idiot/Bundy/”Patriot” intruders); NO to ANY human-financed/oriented destruction of ANY kind. Because, believe it or not, there are some things still remaining on this earth that are of more value than even that of power, of money, of ego.

Meanwhile, below: the peak of the 13,000 ft. (Colorado Rockies Front Range) Greenhorn Mountain is a defined Wilderness area. All who believe it would better serve corporate interests with power lines, or maybe fracking gear, or mining via mountaintop removal, or even an ATV racetrack?? — feel free to vote Republican. On the other hand, to all who are sane, to all who listen to the whispers of intellect and hear the voice of The Wilderness Society . . .

[Photo taken on May 14, 2014, circa 10AM; most of the snow ‘up there’ fell on May 12 and 13, courtesy of yet one more of this year’s human-caused Global Climate Change aberrational impacts. This episode was, however, at least useful in that it may well have postponed the fire season by a week or two, or three. Any port in a storm.]

OPEN THREAD

Post Script: Though they remain but one of the most difficult of all aspects to protect from monetary greed, public lands in the US are, of course, one standout issue implicit in the expansive process required to reverse human contributions to biosphere destruction. In that vein there’s no time like the present to ACT, and The Wilderness Society is but one of many great places to begin. Follow their lead. Help save the earth.

“If future generations are to remember us with gratitude rather than contempt, we must leave them more than the miracles of technology. We must leave them a glimpse of the world as it was in the beginning, not just after we got through with it.”
LBJ
If anyone shows up for the Million Militia Moran March tomorrow, they will get very very wet.

I’m not going to pretend I understand all the issues around this completely, but I’ll just say this: If I have to pay extra to post here or at my blog, I won’t do it. I’ll simply give up the internet completely and force the companies I deal with to do things the old fashioned way – by mail or in person.

I’m sorry if it means I have to say goodbye, but I’m getting sick and tired of rolling over and taking it for Corporate America’s Profits. Let them screw somebody else over.

For thousands of years, Native Americans used the river banks here to cross a gap in the Appalachian Mountains, and trains sped through during the Civil War to connect the eastern and western parts of the Confederacy. In the 21st century, it is the Internet that passes through Chattanooga, and at lightning speed.

“Gig City,” as Chattanooga is sometimes called, has what city officials and analysts say was the first and fastest — and now one of the least expensive — high-speed Internet services in the United States. For less than $70 a month, consumers enjoy an ultrahigh-speed fiber-optic connection that transfers data at one gigabit per second. That is 50 times the average speed for homes in the rest of the country, and just as rapid as service in Hong Kong, which has the fastest Internet in the world.

At some point, speed may be irrelevant, if your city decides to install its own fiber optic. We may have to engage politics on a local level again.

Yep. I would bet my last nickel that the turnout will be closer to 10 than 10 million but I can’t seem to find any mentally competent people to take the bet. BTW. Is that nut in the truck still circling D.C.?

I had watched a couple of the episodes of Aronra’s “Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism” but I never just let the whole three hours play. The downside is that he does just keep going at a fast pace and, in order to really do the whole presentation justice, one would have to constantly stop and go back to catch it all. The upside is that it’s a very, very, thorough takedown of the creationists/snake oil salesmen.